Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired magazine, now holds the title of "senior maverick" with the publication. And his contrarian tendencies have earned him a huge following among the geekery — and plenty of scorn from critics.

In his last book, What Technology Wants, he highlighted a minority view of evolutionary biology — that it favors unending progress and ever-mounting complexity — and suggested that technology has followed the same trajectory.

The trouble, critics argue, is that evolution is more random — shaped by unpredictable mutations and meteorites falling out of the sky to eradicate the dinosaurs — than Kelly would have it. And sometimes, they note, it even favors simplicity.

More importantly, there is a concern that Kelly's upbeat Darwinism gives short shrift to the very real problems of technology — fracking's poisoning of the groundwater, Facebook's invasion of privacy — and our responsibility to intervene.

I asked Kelly, who will speak at the Rhode Island School of Design Auditorium on March 14 at 7:30 pm (the event is sold out, but the university will give no-shows' seats to stand-bys), about this line of attack.

He insisted that he agrees more with his critics than they might suggest. "Every new invention yields new problems," Kelly said. "I'm not utopian at all." But on balance, he argued, the march of technology has produced more good than bad.

That's how he seems to feel about the subject of his talk at RISD: what he calls our emerging "screen culture."

"We were a people of the book," he told me, from the Bible to the Constitution. And our culture, commerce, and politics are still built around the book. But we're in a period of transition. And the implications are profound.

If a book was an immovable object, a finished project, a piece of truth — "author" and "authority" sharing the same root, he notes — the screen is something far different. It is fluid and ephemeral. These days, truth is not found inside bound volumes, but assembled from a constant stream of information.

Kelly said the present hysteria over screen culture — that it represents a dumbing down — echoes the howls that accompanied the birth of the written alphabet, a development that brought all sorts of concern about the emergence of frivolous texts.

Of course, we lost something with the passing of oral culture, Kelly acknowledged. But "most of us," he said, "have agreed to the price."

Review: Left 4 Dead 2 When Valve announced a full-priced sequel to Left 4 Dead only one year after the original, 40,000 frustrated gamers joined an on-line boycott. The boycotters had a point, but they'll miss out if they stand on principle.

News worth paying for? The Providence Journal , offering a rare window onto its own affairs, recently reported that the newspaper could start charging for access to large swaths of projo.com as early as the first quarter of next year.

Review: New Super Mario Bros. Wii The staggering commercial success the folks at Nintendo have achieved in recent years has made it easy to overlook their more unfortunate habits.

2009: Year in video games At the end of each year, there's the temptation to identify a common theme among the games that were released.

Tilting at Windows Stallman — a legend in the programmer community for more than a quarter century — considers it his life's work to proselytize the free-software gospel, educating the lay people who'd otherwise assume that Microsoft or Apple are exclusively synonymous with computing.

Winter wonderland Do not adjust your calendar. Christmas has not been moved to March this year.

Review: The Saboteur When Pandemic Studios was shuttered on November 17, it seemed less another casualty of the economy than a mercy killing.

Review: Army of Two: The 40th Day When I reviewed the original Army of Two , I found myself in the unfamiliar position of being the guy who liked something everybody else hated (as opposed the guy who hated something everybody else liked).

Review: Mass Effect 2 Mass Effect 2 gives us the game we craved the first time around — the laborious load screens remain, but the bits in between are a breath of fresh air.

LIBERAL WARRIOR | April 10, 2013 When it comes to his signature issues — climate change, campaign finance reform, tax fairness — Whitehouse makes little secret of his approach: marshal the facts, hammer the Republicans, and embarrass them into action.

AT BROWN, A WIN FOR CLIMATE CHANGE ACTIVISTS | April 11, 2013 A key Brown University oversight committee has voted to recommend the school divest from coal, delivering a significant victory to student climate change activists.

HACKING POLITICS: A GUIDE | April 03, 2013 Last year, the Internet briefly upended everything we know about American politics.

BREAK ON THROUGH | March 28, 2013 When I spoke with Treasurer Gina Raimondo this week, I opened with the obligatory question about whether she'll run for governor. "I'm seriously considering it," she said. "But I think as you know — we've talked about it before — I have little kids: a six-year-old, an eight-year-old. I'm a mother. It's a big deal."

THE LIBERAL CASE FOR GUNS | March 27, 2013 The school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut spurred hope not just for sensible gun regulation, but for a more nuanced discussion of America's gun culture. Neither wish has been realized.